Political elephant in the room in Alberni-Pacific Rim riding

It was not mentioned at the all-candidates’ meeting at the Best Western Barclay Hotel on May 7.

I haven’t heard it addressed publicly.

What I have heard is the BC Liberal candidate for Alberni-Pacific Rim, Darren DeLuca, wants to build LNG and coal terminals on Alberni Inlet plus a $100 Million truck route.

What I have heard is the BC Conservative candidate, Enid-Mary Sangster-Kelly, “sees no reason not to mine coal”.

I managed to ask NDP candidate Scott Fraser directly and he waffled some concern but had no definitive response.

It’s time our political classes see the elephant in the room. Climate change is the single overriding issue of our time. We’ve now raised carbon dioxide (CO2) to levels, 400ppm, not recorded in 800,000 years. The Arctic is melting because of it, oceans acidifying, the weather changing, but everyone avoids and dithers or worse.

This is not about ‘saying no to everything’, this is about saying yes:

– to the boom created in Port Hardy by the wind farm now under construction;

– to rebuilding and extending a railway so that freight, and eventually people, can be moved off our roads rather than building new ones;

– to developing the vast geothermal energy locked under our island and province;

– to local agriculture and business so that people don’t feel they have to find the quickest route to Nanaimo or Courtenay to get what they need;

– to redeveloping our forests so they share their wealth for all right here on the Island instead of being shipped away day after day to Asia;

I’ve voted. I hope many other people have too. I just hope this letter gives a heads up on what has been missing from the debate. We ignore this issue at great expense, in this riding and everywhere.